


This Charmed Space

by CracklPop



Series: Stetopher Week 2019 [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Future Fic, M/M, Memory Loss, Memory Magic, Multi, Nemeton, Stetopher Week 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-31 19:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21248576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CracklPop/pseuds/CracklPop
Summary: The Nemeton creates a place for both Stiles and itself to heal after a near-apocalypse. The tree also draws Peter and Chris to serve as Stiles’ companions and guardians. For the Stetopher Week 2019 prompt “Hallowe’en!”
Relationships: Chris Argent/Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: Stetopher Week 2019 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1525601
Comments: 10
Kudos: 191





	This Charmed Space

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own or profit from these characters. 
> 
> Uh, so here was my original idea for this prompt: _Little Red, Wolf, and Hunter enjoy themselves in sexy ways on All Hallows Eve. Maybe light-hearted role play? _
> 
> Well. This took a turn, let me tell you. I…don’t even know what this is. Poem is Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s _Crossing the Bar._

Wolf looks at the calendar carved into the side of the cabin wall and finds himself unexpectedly smiling. It’s October 31. The calendar takes up a huge space, from floor to ceiling, and it’s been crafted with exquisite care. Wolf remembers the calendars of the first few years. Crude work, just hashmarks for the first few months. 

But now the word _October_ is decorated with flourishes that look like flowers and pumpkins trailing long, curled vines. Hunter has had a long time to hone his skills, after all. They’re never sure how many years have passed in their little world. Every New Year, the calendar wall is magically smooth and bare once more, and Wolf finds his memories are bit…fuzzy when he tries to count back. 

He’s seen his reflection in the still pond where the brook they draw water from empties. His hair grows, his wounds heal, but he does not age. Hunter, he knows, is the same. Hair that once started to silver has been arrested in its turn, crow’s feet about his ice-blue eyes never deepening. 

And Red…. Wolf’s smile fades and he leans against the calendar wall to look out the window. Their youngest companion is coming back up the path toward the cabin, finished with the first of his daily visits to the Nemeton. _He_ doesn’t remember, of course, that it’s unusual to look twenty-two for innumerable years. Or that it isn’t natural to commune with a tree, no matter how majestically it’s growing. 

No, for Red, this is the entire universe: Wolf, Hunter, the Nemeton, and their snow-globe life in the forest. He doesn’t remember anything from before, and his mind can’t seem to retain the details Hunter and Wolf try to tell him. They gave that up…however many years ago. 

Wolf knows it’s the Nemeton. If it wants Red to remember, he’ll remember. Until then….

Outside, the lesser trees are shedding their brilliant foliage, and Red’s much-worn, hooded sweatshirt is a dead-on match for the crimson leaves that have begun to crumple and fade. 

Hunter joins him, walking unhurriedly up from his morning rounds of the traps. He has a brace of rabbits slung over his shoulder and his long legs eat up the distance until he’s close enough to throw an arm around Red’s shoulders. 

Red turns his face up, pale skin seeming to glow with simple happiness at seeing Hunter’s familiar visage. Hunter bends his head and busses Red on the lips, ducking down to nip at his ear before straightening up again. Red laughs, baring his neck in one long column, and Wolf feels his incisors lengthen. He knows his eyes are likely glowing blue, but he doesn’t bother to control the minor shift. The days of secrecy are long since passed. And who is there to care? Hunter has known of werewolves his entire life and Red doesn’t remember anything different. 

The cabin door opens, letting in a gust of crisp, chilly autumn air and the smell of approaching winter. 

“Wolf!” Red exclaims, arms coming around Wolf to hug him tightly, his cold nose buried in Wolf’s throat. Wolf rumbles amiably, squeezing Red in return and rubbing his cheek over Red’s dark hair. 

“Got dinner,” Hunter grunts, indicating the rabbits. He goes outside to put the meat in their makeshift version of refrigeration and wash his hands with water from the rain barrels. 

Wolf, though he was accounted a competent enough camper back in the days of civilization and plenty, had learned some hard lessons about survival from Hunter in the beginning of their time here. It turned out Hunter’s father not only cared deeply about eradicating the supernatural, he also had been an intensely dedicated survivalist. Without Hunter’s bug-out bags, Wolf doesn’t know that he and Red would have made it. 

The thought makes him snort a little, huffing a breath into Red’s cheek as they disengage. No, they would have continued to live, he revises. If nothing else, it’s become clear that the Nemeton had a purpose in drawing the three of them to it, and killing Red off in the early days was not part of its plan. 

“How was the tree this morning, Little Red?” Wolf asks, sitting on their carefully preserved armchair. 

Red drops down to a cushion at his feet, leaning his head against Wolf’s knee and relaxing with a small sigh. 

“Thoughtful,” Red answers eventually. 

“Is that unusual?” Wolf cards through Red’s hair with deliberate movements, soothing for the most part, but occasionally tugging. Red’s eyes slip to half-mast in pleasure. 

“Hm,” Red volunteers after a minute. “It feels like something might be changing. The Nemeton is thinking about the future. That’s different.” 

Wolf’s fingers pause and his whole body tightens before he resumes stroking. 

“It is Samhain. Hallowe’en. Traditionally, it marked the ending of the harvest time and the beginning of the year’s darkest days.”

“The Nemeton didn’t seem sad or upset,” Red says, thoughtful himself. 

They sit in silence for a while, watching the fire crackle and spit in the stone hearth. Hunter returns and takes his customary seat at the little table, whittling. 

“I have to gather birch wood and holly berries,” says Red abruptly. He rubs his cheek against Wolf’s leg in farewell before walking back outside. 

“Samhain was a happy time when I was young,” Wolf remarks in the quiet after Red’s departure. 

Hunter is whittling a group of three jack-o-lanterns, he notices. 

“Big druid holiday,” Hunter says. 

“Bonfires, lavish family dinners, dancing. Pack runs under skies full of stars,” Wolf says, eyes distant. “When Talia’s kids were little, they trick-or-treated every year before the pack events. Derek—” Wolf’s voices catches for a second, but he pushes through “—Derek went as Han Solo three years in a row.” 

Hunter carves without speaking for long enough that Wolf has gotten lost in the flicker of flames and startles a little when he hears Hunter’s gravelly tones. 

“Allison wanted to be Mary Lou Retton one year,” Hunter says. “Victoria had gotten her this book about famous American gymnasts. Allison wanted us to cut her hair like Mary Lou’s, and wear a leotard outside in October when we lived in Canada. Victoria put her foot down. Allison sulked for days.”

“What’d she end up going as?” Wolf asks, curious. They’ve often talked through everything that led up to this strange, suspended existence, but Hunter is less inclined to reminisce in general. 

“A werewolf ballerina,” Hunter tells him drily. 

Wolf laughs, the sound bright enough that Hunter pauses in his work to give him a fond look. They’ve overcome their differences—they’ve had to. First for survival and then for Red’s sake. They hadn’t thought Red would live very long, those first days. The back of his skull had been crushed and he was covered in so much blood his skin was more rust-colored than anything else. 

Hunter had found him, sprawled brokenly at the base of the Nemeton’s stump in the wake of the destruction. When Wolf got to them, Hunter was already digging a grave, despite the thready pulse at Red’s throat. Had they been cut off from the outside world while they argued over what to do with Red, the Nemeton weaving a barrier they would never be able to cross on their own? Wolf wonders sometimes. 

The Nemeton healed Red, gradually but inexorably, and at some point, Wolf began to see that as Red healed, so did the tree. It was a modest seedling at first, when Red’s head was whole again. When Red walked on his own, the tree became a sapling. And when Red spoke, naming himself and asking his companions to bring him to the Nemeton, the tree burst into bloom. 

Wolf still hates the honey-sweet scent of the tree’s soft, blood-colored flowers—a little, at least. He can’t deny the tree saved Red, but it also took from him. Red’s skin may be flawless, his bones reformed, his muscles knit together as though they’d never been torn…but he doesn’t know who he used to be. Who any of them were. 

Red can’t keep their true names in his mind. The only things that stick are _wolf_ and _hunter_. Wolf supposes there’s an irony of some kind in all that, given their history, but he doubts he’ll ever be required to explain the nature of it. 

Hunter finishes his piece and sets it on a windowsill. The sun, already past its apex when Red left on one of his many errands for the Nemeton, is creeping behind the tops of the tallest trees, making shadow-branches quiver on the cabin’s fine-sanded floorboards. 

Wolf picks up one of his precious books and lights the kitchen lamp with a taper. He can hear Hunter moving about in the main room of their home, readying things for the evening and the next morning. The Nemeton will provide both things they cannot do without and also the odd, sometimes confusing surprise gift. But the bulk of the work for everyday life falls on Wolf and Hunter. 

The door opens again and it’s Red, cheeks flushed from his walk outside and whatever mysterious, druidic things the Nemeton has required of him. 

“Little Red,” Wolf greets him, setting his book down. 

“You were gone longer than I expected,” Hunter says. 

“Later tonight the Nemeton wants us to visit,” replies Red. 

“All of us?” Wolf frowns. 

“The season is ending,” Red says, shrugging with the kind of easy acceptance that has marked his interactions with the Nemeton since his near-death and subsequent magical recovery. 

“Seasons have ended before,” Hunter points out. 

“_This_ season is ending,” Red says. “But we have until nightfall.”

“And then what?” Wolf asks, suspicious. 

“A change,” Red responds, maddeningly vague. 

Wolf and Hunter, more by dint of experience than any intrinsic patience, don’t question Red further, just try their hardest to put aside their unease until they can actually face whatever this mysterious change might be. 

Red shoots them both a guilty look. He can tell he’s caused tension with the news, but all three of them know better than to try to force him to go deeper into the Nemeton’s whys and wherefores. He lowers his lean form onto the large rug in front of the fire and stretches out, letting his muscles loosen in front of the heat. 

“Read to me?” Red suggests, batting long eyelashes in Wolf’s direction. 

Wolf gives him an unimpressed look, but inside he’s remembering the last real Hallowe’en party he attended. It was right before everything went to shit, and he’d just returned to Beacon Hills for the pack’s first post-college Samhain event. Wolf had been traveling—for pleasure and for pack business—most of the time Scott McCall and his friends were in undergrad, but he’d come back at his nephew’s urging, and found Derek surrounded by suddenly adult-looking wolves. Well, mostly wolves. 

There’d been one doe-eyed human. 

Stiles. 

A Stiles who had well and truly come into his own, who was at ease with his body, and who exuded a contented kind of confidence. The wolf who was Peter Hale had been captivated—lively, curious, bold Stiles was everything Peter wanted most in that moment. 

Wolf blinks away the unexpected moisture from his eyes and clears his throat. 

“You know this book better than I do,” he tells Red. “You’re just being lazy.”

“C’mon, Wolf. Read to meeeee,” Red pleads. 

Wolf shifts in the chair and gives Red a stern glance. 

“Behave,” he says. 

Red lowers his amber-brown eyes with entirely feigned remorse and Hunter chuckles, choosing to sit behind Red on the rug. Red immediately leans back into the cradle of Hunter’s hard body, letting the other man cage him in with a happy sigh. 

Wolf begins to read, knowing Red is mouthing the words along with him. He reads and reads as the sun sinks, and is partway through one of the poems when he decides to join his companions by the fire. He blows out the kitchen lamp and reverently places the book back on its shelf, knowing he and Red and probably Hunter, too, can recite the book backward and forward. He settles in at Hunter’s side and Red completes the work for him, husky voice quiet, the only sound aside from the hiss of the flames in their hearth.

“_Twilight and evening bell/And after that the dark!/And may there be no sadness of farewell/When I embark._” Red pauses, nuzzling into Wolf’s chest. “_For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place/The flood may bear me far,/I hope to see my Pilot face to face/When I have crost the bar._” 

Wolf feels the warm press of Red’s arm against his own, the firm pressure of Hunter’s thigh next to his. On his other side, the flames burn merrily, a sight that would have sent him running many years ago. 

The sun slides into sleep, its final rays of gold-shot crimson glinting off the copper threads in Red’s hair. 

After one more breath, Red stands up, Wolf and Hunter joining him more reluctantly. Red douses the fire and guides them outdoors, where they follow his steady steps to the Nemeton’s grove. 

The tree is massive, the king of the forest once again. 

“Inside this charmed space,” Red murmurs, “we are a time apart.” 

Wolf feels the ground beneath him tremble, and above him the Nemeton’s myriad branches susurrate. The cool wind wraps around him, a disquieting caress. 

“The season is changing.” Red’s voice is still quiet, but it holds the strength of a solid oak. 

Wolf feels the hard, calloused grip of Hunter’s hand on his own and he squeezes back. A pale mist rises around them, seemingly from everywhere and nowhere. Wolf thinks he can hear the Nemeton, then, the way Red must hear it every day. It sounds…pleased. The words aren’t distinct, though, and Wolf can see the look of pain on Red’s face, the way he clutches his head between thin fingers. 

Hunter moves with him, and together they surround Red with their own bodies, protecting him the only way they can. Something hits Wolf’s face and he sees it’s one of the Nemeton’s sweet-smelling, vermilion petals. He shakes his head to clean it and realizes the enormous tree has simultaneous flowers and leaves, as though it’s expending excess energy, letting its power run rampant. The blossoms rain down on Wolf, Hunter, and Red, until the ground looks like it’s slick with blood. 

When there are no more flowers, the sparse grass vibrates and shudders, while overhead the branches of the entire forest sound as though they’re whispering secrets. The scarlet blooms crumble into the earth and Wolf can’t see them anymore. 

The Nemeton’s noises grow louder, and Red shrieks. There’s a deafening crack, and the air shivers, feeling heavy in Wolf’s lungs. Red is limp in the arms of his companions and the Nemeton is silent. 

“Do you smell that?” Hunter whispers harshly, and Wolf jerks to attention, a long-forgotten part of him offended that a human believes he could out-scent a wolf. But Hunter is right. There _is_ a foreign smell—a whole host of them. Metal and cooking food and trampled grass and something…chemical. It smells of _people_. Of _other people. _

Hunter meets Wolf’s eyes. The season’s changed. Without words, they each take a tighter hold on Red’s unresisting body and move forward into the new world.


End file.
